Sold with the intention of being refitted to become a hotel ship, while being towed to Thailand she was wrecked as American Star at Playa de Garcey on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands on 18 January 1994.

The interior accommodations were styled by architects Eggers & Higgins to be the utmost in contemporary American design, making use of stainless steel, ceramics, and synthetics.

It entered the Norfolk Ship Yards on 6 June 1941 for conversion and on 15 June 1941, it was commissioned for service under the command of Captain Frank H. Kelley, Jr.[9] By the time the conversion was completed, life-rafts covered the promenade deck windows, "standee" bunks could be found everywhere, several anti-aircraft weapons were installed, all of the windows were covered, the ship was painted in a camouflage gray color, and the troop-carrying capacity was increased to 7,678.

On 5 September the President assured the British leader that six vessels would be provided to carry twenty thousand troops and would be escorted by the American Navy.

The chief of Naval Operations ordered troop ships divisions seventeen and nineteen, on 26 September 1941, to prepare their vessels for approximately six months at sea.

On 10 November, West Point – in company with five other transports: Wakefield, Mount Vernon, Orizaba, Leonard Wood, and Joseph T. Dickman – got under way for India as Convoy HS-124.

In addition to the two American ships, three British transports – Duchess of Bedford, Empress of Japan, and Empire Star – made up the remainder of the van.

Japanese submarine activities near the Indonesian archipelago prompted concern for the safe arrival of the valuable ships, hence a 200-mile (320 km) detour through the shallow, coral-studded Sunda Strait.

Since the naval base came under daily heavy air raids, the transports proceeded to Keppel Harbor, the commercial basin at Singapore, where they could discharge their troops and cargo.

Later that morning, Captain Kelley attended a conference with British authorities, who informed him that his ship was to be used to carry a contingent of Australian troops from Suez to Singapore and to transport refugees and evacuees to Ceylon.

With the emergency "acute", Kelley agreed to take on board up to one thousand women and children and such additional men as the British desired to send.

Most carried only hand baggage; had little, if any, money; but were all fortunate enough to escape the doomed city before its fall to the onrushing Japanese troops of General Yamashita.

Overcast and squally weather covered their departure and permitted them to transit the Banka Strait unmolested by the seemingly omnipresent Japanese aircraft.

Wakefield, despite its weakened condition caused by the direct hit on 29 January, embarked two naval ratings, six RAF personnel, and 25 men and one officer of a British Bofors gun detachment.

Although heavy weather was encountered en route, the Greek destroyer acquitted itself well, continuing to patrol its station "at all times at high speed ahead of our zig-zag."

After discharging her evacuees at Bombay, West Point parted company with Wakefield and proceeded to Suez where she picked up Australian troops who were being withdrawn from the North African Campaign to fight the Japanese in Southeast Asia.

After two voyages to the United Kingdom, West Point sailed for India, via the South Atlantic route, and arrived at Bombay on 29 November, before pushing on for Auckland, New Zealand, the following month.

It then continued west—calling at Bombay, Massawa, Aden, and Suez—and stopped briefly at Cape Town en route to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Eventually arriving at New York on 4 May, the ship subsequently made two voyages to Casablanca, French Morocco before sailing for Bombay via the southern Atlantic route.

Calling at Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town en route, the big transport continued, via Bombay and Melbourne, on for the West Coast of the United States.

Soon thereafter, West Point began transporting troops to Australia and continued making voyages there and to Allied bases in the Central and South Pacific through the end of 1943.

It conducted five successive voyages to the United Kingdom before departing Boston on 6 December 1944 for Oran, Algeria; Casablanca, French Morocco; and Marseille, France.

[4] Additionally the troop transport carried Red Cross workers, United Nations officials, children, civilians, prisoners of war, and U.S.O.

To many ship lovers, she was the most beautifully decorated liner to fly the American flag,[citation needed] smaller and more graceful than her much faster fleetmate, the SS United States, which debuted in 1952.

On 22 October 1970, fire broke out in the galley, causing the air-conditioning supply units and exhaust systems to be cut off from the bridge and "B" deck port about 3:45 a.m.

Ultimately, rising fuel costs, aging infrastructure, and the creation of long-range jetliners caused Chandris to pull Australis off the Australian run in 1978.

[20] Due to overbooking and her state of incompletion, a number of passengers "mutinied", forcing the captain to return to New York, having only barely passed the Statue of Liberty.

Her forward dummy funnel had become severely corroded due to years of neglect and was removed as part of an ambitious plan to modernize her silhouette by adding streamlined superstructure above the bridge, but this 'new look' was never completed.

Italis first operated under Chandris as a hotel ship from 23 June - 20 July 1979 when it was chartered for the Organisation of African Unity Conference held in Monrovia, Liberia.

The only other documentation came from the German documentary Das Wrack der AMERICA in 1999 that showed the interior and exterior of the wreck, including rare views filmed just after the stern section split apart.